ALICIAAll Condition Operations and Innovative Cockpit Infrastructure

State of the Art - Background

ALICIA addresses the Vision 2020 goal of improved time
efficiency in the air transportation system directly by developing
new cockpit systems that can deliver significantly more aircraft
movements than is possible today. The aim within ALICIA is to
develop new systems which will permit aircraft to operate in almost
all weather conditions and to fly closer together at lower risk,
whilst simultaneously driving down air transport delays. ALICIA
will couple the latest thinking in air traffic management (SESAR)
with new cockpit concepts capable of providing improved mission
performance whilst also enhancing situation awareness. The two key
areas of technological advance will be an All Conditions Operations
(ACO) system capable of delivering robust worldwide operations
capability, allowing aircraft to use airports with less capable
ground-based approach aids, in a wider range of degraded flight
conditions. The second key area of technological advance will be a
new cockpit architecture facilitating the introduction of new
cockpit technologies and applications capable of driving down crew
workload whilst enhancing safety and improving crew situational
awareness. The rationale for the new cockpit architecture is borne
of the certainty that within the next decade the cockpit design
will be stressed by the introduction of a series of new concepts
such as ACO and those being developed within the SESAR
programme.

Objectives

The two overarching project objectives are:

1. The development of an ACO capability to reduce
weather-related delays by 20%.

- Delivering a robust worldwide operations capability, allowing
aircraft to use airports with less capable ground based approach
aids, in a wider range of degraded flight conditions;

- Delivering more autonomous aircraft operation, including
anticipation and avoidance of weather disturbances and other
possible perturbations in-flight or on the ground;

- Delivering seamless integration of innovative avionics
technologies and new applications such as All Conditions Operations
to respond to the new challenges of aircraft operation;

- Delivering the architecture to enable the next step towards
single crew operation.

Description of Work

The ALICIA programme provides an opportunity for many key
stakeholders in Europe to work together towards a new approach to
cockpit design. The application focus within the project will be
All Conditions Operations because the technology integration
implicit in the implementation of this system will challenge the
cockpit design. However, All Conditions Operations is just one
element of a diverse range of new systems that will arrive in the
next generation cockpit and the cockpit architecture must be
flexible enough to support this. Accordingly, within ALICIA, new
core concepts applicable to all new flight-decks will be defined
that facilitate the efficient introduction of a broad and expanding
range of operational requirements, whilst achieving the lowest
through life cost.

The utility and scalability of the new concept will be
demonstrated using simulation / synthetic environments and bench
testing to illustrate the feasibility of highly integrated on board
functions performing:

- Strategic Surveillance of the Aircraft Environment;

- Enhanced Navigation;

- Robust Worldwide Operations in demanding Flight
Conditions.

The ALICIA activities will be performed within a structure
covering the following six technical areas:

1)Requirements Capture

2)Concept Generation

3)Technology Selection/Refinement

4)Application Development

5)Evaluation in Cockpit Simulators

6)Dissemination and Exploitation

Expected Results

Low visibility in the critical phases of a flight near to or on
the ground is one of the most disruptive factors in European
aviation today. It has been estimated that 16800 airline flights
were cancelled in 2007 in Europe due to low visibility conditions,
and in some major airports almost 50% of arrival delays are due to
low cloud and poor visibility. ALICIA aims to provide the critical
building blocks necessary to reduce delays in Europe associated
with poor weather by at least 20%. This will provide very
significant economic advantages as well as welcome benefits to the
European traveller.

ALICIA will also make advances in the design of next generation
cockpits using an approach that embraces the principles of
increased standardisation and commonality across multiple aircraft
types. This will contribute to an increase in re-use of European
technology creating further competitive advantage whilst reducing
time to market.

Some of the key innovations that will be pursued within ALICIA
include: